Musician Anoushka Shankar hits out at Air India over damaged sitar

Indian-origin musician Anoushka Shankar has criticised Air India after her sitar was returned to her in a damaged state following a recent flight to New Delhi, where she was scheduled to perform with English singer Jacob Collier and Karnataka-born musician Varijashree Venugopal.

Shankar, daughter of the late maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar, posted a video on Instagram showing the damage and questioned how it could have occurred. “Devastated and truly disturbed by @airindia’s treatment of my sitar. How on earth does damage like this happen without wilful disregard?” she wrote. She added that despite thousands of flights on other airlines, “not even a peg” on her instrument had ever gone out of tune.

In the video, the 44-year-old British-American sitar player said she initially assumed the musical instrument had simply slipped out of tune. “After I tuned it, I picked it up to play and that’s when I realised… This was my first time flying Air India in a long time. You are the country this music belongs to, and this is the first time anything like this has happened to my instrument in 15 or 17 years,” she said. Shankar noted that she uses special protective cases and pays the airline’s handling fee, yet “you’ve done this”.

Shankar, Collier and Venugopal performed on December 2 near the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium; the trio had earlier collaborated on the Grammy-nominated track A Rock Somewhere.

Her post drew widespread support from fellow musicians and fans. Air India has not responded to the allegation; airline officials were not immediately available for comment.